UK political parties urged to commit to AI honesty before elections
Open letter calls for commitment to protect election integrity and voter access to accurate information.
A group of prominent political, technology and civil society leaders have raised concerns about the threat posed by AI-generated content to the integrity of the upcoming UK elections.
The letter, initiated by educational charity and think tank Demos, highlights the risks to the democratic process posed by deepfakes and generative AI tools and calls on all parties to take proactive measures to address them.
Signatories include Martin Lewis, founder and chair of Money Saving Expert, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Rashik Parmer, group CEO of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
The letter emphasises the importance of ensuring that voters have access to accurate information. While acknowledging the potential benefits of AI, the signatories say it also represents a significant risk to democracy. In particular, the ease with which deepfakes and other synthetic content can be created could further erode trust in elections and politics.
"Political parties are by no means powerless on this issue and can play a role in protecting election integrity in the run-up to the UK election," the letter says, urging parties to commit to using the technology in a transparent way:
Refrain from using generative AI tools to produce materially misleading audio or visual content that could deceive voters;
Clearly label any non-trivial use of generative AI in producing campaign content;
Avoid amplifying materially misleading AI-generated content and actively call out such content when appropriate;
Provide clear guidelines to party staff, members, volunteers, and supporters on the responsible use of generative AI in election campaigning.
The letter was drawn up after polling by Demos found that 61% of the public are concerned about how genAI might impact the next general election, with two-thirds wishing to see parties agreeing guidelines on using it responsibly.
The full list of signatories is as follows: Polly Curtis, CEO, Demos; Sam Gregory, executive director, WITNESS; Jeffrey Howard, associate professor and director, UCL Digital Speech Lab; Darren Hughes, CEO, Electoral Reform Society; Martin Lewis, founder of Money Saving Expert and the Money and Mental Policy Institute; Chris Morris, CEO, Full Fact; Gina Neff, executive director, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at Cambridge University; Rashik Parmer, Group CEO, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT; and Jimmy Wales, founder, Wikipedia.
"We are sleepwalking towards an election campaign fought for the first time with generative AI tools available," said Demos in a post on X. "With a risk that deepfakes will make voters lose even more trust in the system, we're calling on our political parties to take action."